A not-terrible $3 brown liquid liner: Jordana INCOLOR Fabuliner Liquid Eyeliner Pen

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I always intend to write really concise reviews for products I don't feel particularly strongly about, but then my rambly nature takes over and I go on and on anyway. For real this time, I'm going to make this quick. FOR REAL THIS TIME.

The Jordana INCOLOR Fabuliner Liquid Eyeliner Pen is a felt tip eyeliner. It's like a sharpie for your face. Previously, I wrote about a couple of other brown liquid liners that were cheap ($3) and sucked. One objectively sucked, and the other I just wasn't into. So I got another cheap option to try. It's brown, because I already have way too fucking many black eyeliners. I wear brown fairly often, because it's a little less harsh with my coloring than black.

First things first: make sure you store this tip down in a cup or something, because otherwise the tip will be dry when you go to use it. When you do use it, you'll have to apply a medium amount of pressure in order to get a dark, opaque line. I don't mean an uncomfortable amount of pressure, but more than you might use with a brush, for example. If you use a light touch, you will get a dark enough line on the first eye from whatever liquid has saturated the outer layers of the tip, but by the time you move on to your other eye, the tip will lose saturation, and you won't get it back even by leaving it sitting upside down for several minutes. You need to press a little harder to get stuff flowing.

With a light touch: okay on the first eye; very faint on the second eye.

The pen is easy to use, and the shape of the tip makes it easy easy to vary the thickness of the line you draw. The downside of this pen is that tip gets frayed easily. I've only used it a handful of times, and it's already getting a bit floppy and imprecise. You will have some slight smearing if you get it wet (no crying!), but otherwise it wears well. It doesn't bleed or crumble or anything like that. It's good. There's nothing about it that blows my mind, but it does the job.

 Jordana INCOLOR Fabuliner Liquid Eyeliner Pen (applied using medium pressure)

Free 2-day shipping from Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic today only + 30- 40% off

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Part of me is saying, "No, you absolutely do not need any more clothing, and you don't have a job" and another part is saying, "Look, you're wearing the tank top you slept in last night right now; you could absolutely use a few cheap summer tops. And a pair of black flip flops." Which side will win? WHO KNOWS?

Use code FREE. There's also a 40% off Banana Republic code (BR40DAYS). They can be combined. Whoop.

I also got a "surprise" 30% off code from Old Navy in a banner at the top of the page when I loaded it, so look for that too. And you can use FIRE on the Gap's page to get 40% off today or 30% off tomorrow.

Free 3-day shipping on orders over $25 from Sephora

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That's decent. Use code SHIP25. You could use it to get some of the Formula X polishes that are on sale. I'M NOT GOING TO BUY ANYTHING THOUGH. (Send me pictures if you do?)

Two $3 Essence lip thingies

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Wow, two actual reviews in a row, rather than just posts ruminating on my weird behavior. Don't worry, it's not in me to stop ruminating, but maybe you'd like to hear about some makeup that you could pick up as a cheap treat. One is good, and the other is potentially good for people who aren't me.

Essence Stay With Me Longlasting Lipgloss in Choose Me! and Essence Stay Matt Lip Cream in Smooth Berry

The first of the two products is Essence Stay With Me Longlasting Lipgloss in Choose Me! The color of this gloss is difficult to categorize. In the tube, it looks like a sort of plummy or burgundy shade with pinkish shimmer. On the lips, the shimmer is pretty much invisible other than to add a bit to the shine, and it's sheer enough that it just sort of deepens my natural lip color and adds some warmth and sheen. It makes my lips more rosy, but not at all vampy, like you might expect from looking at the tube. It doesn't settle into lines as much as it might appear from the photo - that's just the nature of closeups of sheer things, in my experience. It's a very wearable, everyday color. Flattering, too, at least on me. (I hope I've never claimed that something is "universally" flattering, because I've been disappointed by recommendations that made the promise before.)

Essence Stay With Me Longlasting Lipgloss in Choose Me!

Are expensive dry shampoos better? Review of Oscar Blandi Pronto Dry Shampoo

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Okay, so maybe the title of this post is a little grand considering I'm just going to discuss whether or not one particular example of an expensive dry shampoo is "better." But I've pointed out before that I'm a dry shampoo Goldilocks, and I still haven't found the one that's just right. (If you would like to spend your precious time looking at dozens of nearly identical photos of the top of my head - who wouldn't! - check out my dry shampoo tag.) So when I had some HauteLook credits and Oscar Blandi showed up, I decided I would give their dry shampoo a try. I'd heard about it from a few people who love it.

So fancy and Italian., it's like the Renaissance.

This stuff sells for $21 at Sephora (though you can find it for less on Amazon and it was $10.50 on HauteLook), so I sure as shit wouldn't have bought it at full price. Consider also that my $3 Suave dry shampoo contains 5 oz. and the Oscar Blandi only contains 2.5 oz. (though I'm not sure if the propellant etc. in the Suave can counts toward that weight?). But what if paying more is really the secret? What if, to find the perfect dry shampoo, I actually had to spend more than $5? Ugh. What a thought.

Maybe there are brilliant and expensive dry shampoos out there.  But my conclusion from trying this product, at least, is that you're not necessarily going to get a superior dry shampoo just by spending more. This stuff works, and it's fine, but it's not noticeably better than any of the cheap dry shampoos I've used in the past.

L'Oreal Project Runway "Electric Fantasie" nail polishes (limited edition from Fall 2012) on clearance

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So probably this doesn't sound like the most exciting deal in the world, but hear me out: drugstore.com has the L'Oreal Project Runway nail polish collection on clearance for $3.79 each. The colors in that collection are really interesting and unusual. I couldn't find a good link with swatches of all of them in the same place, but you should definitely google the ones you're curious about. There are 6 of them left, and I have not seen these in stores since they first came out in Fall 2012. The only one I own is The Temptress' Power (the names are kind of ridiculous), which is seriously spectacular (swatches here). I'm not supposed to be buying more nail polish, but maybe these constitute a special exception? Maybe?

You can get free shipping over $35, as well as an extra 4% back using Ebates (invite link).

ETA: A few people are still selling some of these on Amazon and ebay, but the prices are generally higher, which is why I wanted to point out the drugstore.com price.

How to Get the Most Out of Seche Vite (from Pretty Girl Science)

Everyone loves Seche Vite, right? Seems that way. But if you've had trouble getting it to work like the miracle top coat it's purported to be, these tips from Pretty Girl Science will be super helpful.

Thinning the Hoard

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Someone once asked me how I decide what to keep and what to get rid of when sorting through my accumulation of makeup products. Now seems like as good a time as any to write a post about that process, since I just realized that I'm going to have to move in less than 6 weeks. Ugh! I mean, I'll be glad to get out of my current shithole of an apartment, but apartment hunting and moving are huge pains in the ass.

Before I pack everything up and move it somewhere else, I'd really like to eliminate as much of the useless shit I have lying around as possible. My piles of unnecessary belongings extend far beyond just makeup, but since that's what I mainly talk about here, that's what I'll stick with right now. Writing it all out is a useful process for me, because it forces me to come up with realistic rules for myself about what I should or should not hold on to, and to spend the time to consider whether or not I really have room for various items. So I'll go through a few categories of cosmetics here and lay out some guidelines upon which I'm basing my decisions about what to keep and what to set free. If you can think of any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Trash or Keep

There are certain items that I can easily decide to hold on to, such as products that I use on a regular basis and/or one that are unique and well-loved, and there are those that I can easily dispense with, because they are of no use to me.

Trash: There are some things that I'm never going to use, and that I also don't think anyone else should use. I tend to come into the possession of shit that falls into this category through subscriptions (Ipsy, in particular), free samples/gift-with-purchase deals, or the occasional impusle purchase. For example, in a recent Ipsy bag, I got some "Mark Fading Pads" by Proactiv, and the first ingredient in them after water was SD alcohol. No thanks. I don't want to use them, and I don't want to subject anyone else to them, so bye bye.

Practical, non-perishable stuff: This category includes products that will get used up eventually and won't expire in the meantime, like eyebrow pencils. Yes, I have too many of them. But they don't take up a lot of space, and they will be fine waiting for me to get around to finishing them. Just don't pick up any new ones in the meantime, self.

Those categories are pretty straightforward. But I also have a lot of things that are more difficult to classify. They may or may not be superfluous. They probably are, but it's helpful to think carefully about why, so that I don't regret passing them along to someone else, because I am ridiculous.

Makeup

Eyeko Skinny Liquid Eyeliner and Urban Decay 24/7 Velvet Glide On Eyeliner

Dupes: I confess that I own a lot of unnecessary dupes and products that perform basically the same function as one another. One example is black eyeliner. Everyone has a favorite black eyeliner, and so I've picked up quite a few along the way that I've heard good things about. I don't really like to open something that I don't yet need, so I have several brand new black eyeliners just sitting around waiting for attention. And I don't even fucking wear black liner very often. Why did I buy them? (Anxiety?) I'll hold on to a couple in addition to the ones I'm currently using, but the rest must go.

Is Sinful Colors nail polish ($2) better quality than Chanel ($27)?

That's what this Consumer Reports test determined, at least in terms of wear time. I guess they just tested one color from each brand though? There are usually significant differences within each line, in my experience. I guess it's enough to show that higher price does not necessarily guarantee a better product (shocking!).

Meanwhile, I've never had a nail polish last more than 4 days, no matter what combination of products I use, and I think even that has only happened once or twice.

A whole fucking dissertation on eyebrow products for blondes and redheads, plus a mini review of L'Oreal Voluminous Butterfly mascara (photo-heavy post)

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So this is the latest installation of a quasi-series in which I pull out all the products I have in from single category and try to decide what I should keep and what I should get rid of. Spoiler: I decided that I'm going to keep all of my eyebrow shit, because it's practical and really won't ever expire, so I'll use it up eventually. I did come to the radical conclusion that I should stop buying more, though. Duh.

All my eyebrow products (top to bottom): NYX Eyebrow Cake Powder in Auburn/Red; e.l.f. Studio Eyebrow Kit in Light; Milani Brow Tint Pen in Natural Taupe; CoverGirl Brow and Eye Makers in Soft Blond; Avon Ultra Luxury Eyebrow Pencil in Blonde; and Benefit Gimme Brow in Light/Medium. 

My hair color over the last few years has run the gamut from blonde-blonde to strawberry-blonde to dark-blonde to red to really-fucking-red. Some of the products below have served me well no matter my hair color, such as the e.l.f. kit and the Avon pencil. Others, like the NYX kit and the CoverGirl pencil really only well with certain hair colors - but then they work very well.

You can tell from the photo above that almost every brow product I have has been well used, so I know them intimately. Look at those stubby pencils! The one exception is Benefit's Gimme Brow, which I got as a graduation present in May. It actually came from the Benefit vending machine in the Minneapolis airport. That's a thing that exists.

In the past, when I thought about my minimum makeup - like what I'd wear if I was running out the door and only had time for a couple of things - it was always just mascara and blush. Maybe under-eye concealer. Lately, though, I feel like I can really take or leave those things so long as I've filled in my eyebrows a little. They're fairly invisible on their own, and as I've pointed out before, they really do make a difference.

I used to use the sort of technique where you define the bottom edge of the brow completely and then fill the rest in, but recently I've much preferred Lisa Eldridge's method of focusing on the peak of the arch and working lightly out from there. (If you have never watched a Lisa Eldridge video, do it some day when you're in a bad mood or stressed - trust me, she's so soothing.) This method really does create a more natural-looking effect. I do fill in the part closest to my nose more than she does, however, because that's where the hair on my brows is the lightest and thinnest. If I don't add a little extra there, my eyebrows look too far apart - I think they still do sometimes, honestly, but I'm not (yet) totally comfortable filling in where there's no real hair at all. Anyway, as you can see in the photos below, this isn't the super-defined and polished look that you tend to see in closeups of dramatic eye makeup. It doesn't look flawless. Super-defined is pretty, but it's just not what I'm going for. My brows might look a little less than perfect in a super closeup, but no one is looking as closely as my camera is getting in these photos - and the lack of perfection is what makes them look natural, I think. Here's what they usually look like at a normal distance (scroll down).

I hope you have a couple of weeks to read the rest of this post, because as usual I am long-fucking-winded.

Pinterest lies: Review of e.l.f. Studio Lip Exfoliator

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So I'll start by pointing out that this is a perfectly fine, serviceable product. It's supposed to exfoliate your lips, and it more or less does. It's basically just chunky brown sugar suspended in a emollient/waxy base. Like gritty lip balm.

But I see this pin all the time and for some reason it drives me crazy.

It's the caption that gets me, and it's always the same. I need to straighten things out here: don't buy this to use overnight. What are you going to do with it overnight? It makes no sense. When you rub this stuff on your lips, it leaves behind a bunch of grains of sugar and some moisturizing stuff. You can massage it around some more to exfoliate better, but then you still have chunks on your face that you have to wipe off. I guess you could then leave the remaining balm behind overnight and that might do something, but that's the case with any lip balm. Personally, I like to add some extra moisturizer to my lips, because the sugary taste of this stuff makes me want to lick my lips, and that's not good for them.

I know, I'm being too picky. Anyway, it works okay. I still usually have some big flaky bits on my lips after I use it, but then I always do, no matter what I try to do about that. I find that a little olive oil or honey with brown sugar mixed into it works better as a lip exfoliator, because the pieces of sugar in the e.l.f. stick are pretty big and sparse so they're not as efficient for scrubbing. They're pretty rough, too. The advantage of this stick is that it's more portable and (slightly) less messy than a homemade concoction.

So it's fine. It's convenient and there's nothing wrong with it. I wouldn't buy it again, but for $3 it's pretty cheap and certainly a better option than some ridiculous fucking $25 lip scrub. But $3 worth of oil and sugar would go a lot further and work a bit better.

Musings about makeup hoarding and anxiety and stuff

I'm going to write a post soon about the process of sorting through my embarrassingly large hoard of makeup and on what basis I choose what to keep and what to get rid of (someone asked me about that once). Working through it has left me reflecting on why I accumulated all this crap to begin with. I'll have more to say about that in the upcoming post, but right now I just want to go ahead and blame grad school for saddling me with more makeup than any person who is not a makeup artist or a dragon who lives on top of some kind of giant sparkly heap of cosmetics under Lovely Mountain should reasonably possess. Certainly more than a person should have who is only just now kind of getting into lipstick and barely has enough eyelid space for more than one color of eyeshadow.

Hear me out on why grad school is one of the top factors to blame for my recent acquisitiveness and rampant consumerism (there are others, which I'll think about another time). In my experience, and in my observations of people around me, grad school seriously exacerbates people's latent pathologies/neuroses and brings out their weirdest behavior. Exactly what form it takes is different for everyone. It's much like any other prolonged, stressful situation in that respect, with the added bonus that the sorts of people who choose to go to grad school, and particularly those who pursue doctoral degrees, seem to be more prone to neurosis to begin with. In my case, I've always been fascinated by shopping/fashion/beauty, and I definitely had some hereditary hoarding collecting tendencies, and so this all came together in a compulsive need to own one of everything in every color. If you've been to grad school, you might be nodding knowingly, though many people spend their meagre grad school stipends on other, non-cosmetic, substances or develop totally different vices. If you haven't been to grad school, be satisfied with your life choices - or if you are considering going, do some research on anxiety/depression/mental illness + academia before you enroll.

Now that I've transitioned from grad school madness to post-grad school unemployment bleakness, I've cut down on the buying. I'm not trying to do some kind of "no buy" thing, because . . . that's still a sort of fixation on (not) buying makeup that doesn't work well for me. But the stress of unemployment is more of a general, hollow despair rather than an amped up, self-conscious anxiety, and it's hopefully temporary, so it's time to start sorting through the heap and move on to other preoccupations.

(I'm still having fun with the blog thing, though.)

Various Sephora Formula X nail polishes now on sale for $5-6

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That's a semi-reasonable price. I mean, a lot of these polishes are spectacular, but I still can't bring myself to drop $12.50 on a single bottle of nail polish.

ETA: While you're at it, this awesome crystal nail file is also on sale for $5.

Preservatives are Good, Or: Yes, you do want parabens in your sunscreen

This is a story from last fall, but it's worth the reminder for anyone who might be looking for more "natural" sunscreens - especially for their kids. Last September, Badger recalled about 30,000 tubes of their baby and kids sunscreen, because they were contaminated with bacteria and fungi. Gross. That was apparently because the organic preservatives they contained were not sufficiently effective. They are reformulating those sunscreen lotions and will be putting out a new (hopefully safer) product in 2015.

Here's a good preservatives primer from The Beauty Brains.

Free 1 year ShopRunner membership for Amazon Prime customers who have not yet renewed and for American Express card holders

ShopRunner is a free 2-day shipping service that is available for certain stores. If you regularly shop at any of those sites, it's pretty handy to have, because you get fast, free shipping with no minimum. I've used it a lot for Drugstore.com during the past two years that I've had an account. You can also use it places like Newegg, Petsmart, GNC, shoes.com, and a bunch of other stores, including a number of clothing retailers.

Normally it's $79 a year, but right now they are offering free 1-year memberships for people who have Amazon Prime but haven't yet renewed it, and for "eligible" American Express card holders. For $79, you'd have to use the service quite a bit for it to be worthwhile - but for free? Definitely worth it. Drugstore.com alone regularly has makeup stuff that is hard to find in stores and also has good promotions. There are also special deals on the ShopRunner site for members.

If you click my invite link (I get $10), you'll find banners at the top of the ShopRunner page advertising these free memberships (you can just go to their website without clicking my link, if you prefer). There is also a list of all the stores this works for on the linked pages.

(Unfortunately, it doesn't work if your Amazon Prime account is a trial one, or if you've already renewed it, or if you already have a ShopRunner account. Boo.)

Dupe Test: e.l.f. Shimmering Facial Whip in Lilac Petal ($1) vs. Benefit High Beam ($26)

Disclosure: This post contains some Amazon affiliate links.
e.l.f. Shimmering Facial Whip in Lilac Petal is frequently mentioned as a cheap dupe for the much beloved but very expensive High Beam highlighter from Benefit. I'll be the first to admit that I am pretty liberal with applying the term "dupe". I'm no stickler. If it's basically the same and performs the same function, I'm fine with it. Nevertheless, after comparing these products (and two other pinkish highlighters I own), I have some mild reservations about calling them dupes. They can be used for the same purposes, successfully, but there are some significant differences. Rather than a dupe, I'd say that the e.l.f. highlighter is a good product, and a reasonable alternative to the Benefit version. A near dupe, maybe. Since I'm convinced that there are cheap options that are comparable to almost all higher-end beauty products, and since I'm on a weird quest to determine which e.l.f. products are decent and which ones are shit, this kind of comparison is my idea of fun. Wheeeeee.

Left to right: e.l.f. Shimmering Facial Whip in Lilac Petal, Benefit High Beam, Stila All Over Shimmer Liquid Luminizer in Pink Shimmer, Pixi Brightening Primer in Pearl Essence

I threw two other similar highlighters into the mix, just for the sake of completion, and in case anyone else has them and would like to see how they fare. None of these are dupes. You can see just from the photo above that the e.l.f. highlighter is quite a bit pinker than the Benefit or Stila, and it is pinker than the Pixi option too, though the bottle for that one is opaque. On to the swatches!

Top left to bottom right: Swatches of e.l.f. Shimmering Facial Whip in Lilac Petal, Benefit High Beam, Stila All Over Shimmer Liquid Luminizer in Pink Shimmer, Pixi Brightening Primer in Pearl Essence

Let me break them down one by one - I'll end with e.l.f.

25% off everything plus free shipping from Stila

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Excludes sale items. No code needed. Decent discount if you have a Stila staple that never goes on sale.

ASOS summer sale items up to 60% off

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I'm still bummed that ASOS has a $25 limit before they give you free shipping, but I guess that's relatively low. Anyway, the sale is decent. There are some dresses that are not crotch-baring! And some nice leather satchels for about half price, among other things.

Customizing foundation shades when you're too pale, too dark, or too warm (and FACE Atelier on HauteLook)

Cheaper foundations, as a rule, tend to come in a smaller range of colors. An option to deal with those limitations is to mix foundations in order to make a custom shade . . . but if the stuff you need is lighter or darker than the lightest or darkest end of the range, then it's not going to be possible to mix something that works! I watched this Lisa Eldridge video recently about how to get the right shade when you're super, super pale, and one of the things she recommends is FACE Atelier foundation in Zero Minus, which is a white foundation you can mix with the one you have to lighten it up. They also sell Zero Plus and Zero Plus Plus to darken your makeup, and Heat to warm it up, if you find that most options are too cool for your skin. They're not cheap, which is why I am really, really tempted to pick up a couple from HauteLook right now (invite link). Definitely Zero Minus, and maybe Heat? A lot of colors are too cool for me, but Heat might just overcompensate. I'm not sure.

These FACE Atelier foundations are $21-30 on sale, which is obviously not cheap (but much cheaper than their usual $34-48 price tag), but buying one might be more cost effective than buying 5 different foundations that you use a few times and then give up on because they are just not right. You can mix them with any silicone/water-based foundation. What do you think? Worth it?

Review: Coppertone Clearly Sheer Sunscreens (SPF 30 lotion and SPF 50 spray)

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I know what I like when it comes to sunscreen for my face, and I'm pretty devoted to the one I use. It's pretty pricy, though, so I prefer to use more affordable options on other parts of my body, so that I don't find myself skimping. I'm much less picky about what sunscreen goes below my neck, so long as it works, but there are definitely better and worse options out there.

When the most recent BzzAgent campaign I got into was for sunscreen, and I got a couple of bottles to test for free, I was pretty happy to try them. I'd been using this junk that I bought last year, just to get rid of it, and it's so terrible that even light friction from bra straps or other parts of my clothing are enough to rub it completely off and cause me to burn in certain areas. Ugh. Since I burn really easily, and I pretty much don't tan, I just slather on the sunscreen whenever I'm going to spend any time outside. There's no point hoping to get any color - and that's not important to me anyway. Besides, my freckles will pop out even with sunscreen, and isn't that really what matters?

BzzAgent sent me two new Coppertone sunscreens. One is the SPF 30 Clearly Sheer For Sunny Days lotion, and the other is the SPF 50 Clearly Sheer For Beach & Pool aerosol spray. Both contain a combination of avobenzone and other chemical sunscreen ingredients, so if you're sensitive to those, these won't be right for you - but I personally prefer them. They have the advantage of not creating a white tint on your skin or reflecting in flash photography, and they also don't clog my pores like mineral/physical sunscreens do (though I know the latter problem is a rare one). These sunscreens are quite affordable, in the $8-10 range, depending on where you find them.

I tried the SPF 30 lotion first. Even though I prefer a liquid on my face, I was curious how this would work as an everyday facial sunscreen. They sell another option that is labeled for use on the face (in a smaller bottle), but the marketing copy on the BzzAgent website says that the one they sent is "face friendly," "won't clog pores," and that its "matte finish is perfect under makeup." Sounds good.

In which I wear orange lipstick and don't look like a clown corpse

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There were two truths that I once thought I knew about myself: I don't really like lipstick, and I can't wear orange makeup. I look okay in orange clothing, so I've always felt like I should be able to wear orange on my face, but it always goes horribly wrong somehow. Orange eyeshadow = fresh zombie. Orange blush = consumption victim. Orange lipstick = clown recently murdered by jealous competitor. I've given orange lip products that look dreadful on me to my sister, and she looks great in them - despite the fact that looking at us, you would think we had very similar coloring, and we've even been mistaken for twins (although I am 4 years older, haha, sucka). Even coral on the orange side has been a disaster.

I've eased up a bit on the lipstick hate lately, though I still prefer a stain or a gloss or a balm, etc. But I'm still not completely sure what compelled me to spend my precious Ipsy points (shout out to whomever used my invite link!) on an orange lipstick. In the photos and swatches that I found online, bareMinerals Marvelous Moxie lipstick in Light It Up looks pretty bright fucking orange. Exactly the kind of thing I've never been able to wear, and yet I ordered it. Morbid curiosity?

When I got it and opened up the tube . . . yeah, it still looks pretty fucking orange. An orangey coral, but definitely orangey. As I should have expected. Yikes.

bareMinerals Marvelous Moxie lipstick in Light It Up

By the way, I find the locking mechanism on the tube somewhat annoying. I guess it would help to prevent it from coming open in your purse or whatever, but this way you have to flip it upside down, slide the little knob, then flip it back over and pull the lipstick out. It's 5 seconds, but it seems unnecessarily gimmicky. I'd prefer a regular lid that just clicks into place.

Since I already spoiled the end of this fascinating drama in the title of the post, I'll get to the results, where - surprise! - this lipstick actually doesn't look terrible on me.

bareMinerals Marvelous Moxie lipstick in Light It Up

When it's on my face, it looks like it has a lot more pink in it than it does in the bullet. Its definitely a coral shade, not a pure orange. Quite bright, and yet there's something about this one that does not turn the rest of my face the color of death! I don't know what it is. Needs more research.

The formula of the lipstick is pretty nice. It's creamy and goes on opaque. The best way to apply it is to put on one coat, blot the fuck out of it, and then add another coat. If you just do a single layer, it will show lines and dryness much worse. Two layers evens most of that out. Because it's very creamy, it will settle into lines slightly as time passes, but honestly, I am pretty damned picky about that sort of thing, and I don't think it's noticeable unless you look extremely closely. The creaminess also means that it will transfer easily. This is definitely not a long-wear lipstick, but nevertheless, the color lasts several hours (I'd say 5+ even if you drink a cup of coffee and eat a snack or something), and the creaminess means you can press your lips together and keep it spread around as the day goes on. It wears off pretty nicely, not patchy. Because of the texture, it feels great on my lips and isn't drying, which I appreciate. The lipstick has a light vanilla-mint scent, kind of like mint-flavored white chocolate, but it's very subtle and dissipates quickly.

What happens when you layer different sunscreens? (from FutureDerm)

Super useful! Explains things like: is there any benefit to layering multiple products that contain sunscreen? What happens when you apply two different SPFs, one over the other?

Do I Need This? Makeup Setting Spray

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
Here is the yet another installment of "Do I Need This?", a series about new and trendy beauty products (or just those that might be unfamiliar and baffling to both of us). I'll offer my experience and opinion about whether or not I think the product under consideration is worth shelling out for. Obviously, you don't need ANY beauty products, so the answer is always going to be no, a little bit. But is it going to change your life (or face)? Is it going to make things easier? Are you going to notice any difference at all if you use it? That's what I'm getting at. You may disagree with my verdict, because we all have different bodies/faces/brains/desires, but I'll try to give you a starting point at least.

I just had to go ahead and write this post that I've been sitting on for at least 6 months. No more dithering. The fact that I've been trying and trying to figure out a way for these products to actually be useful should itself give you an idea of what my verdict is going to be here. I have seen people all over the great wide Internets claim that setting sprays are miraculous, but in the end, I can only base my review on my own personal experience with them. I've tried three sprays at three price points from Urban Decay, NYX, and e.l.f., and also I tried just misting water on my face. All the products I tested have very different ingredients - so none of them are dupes.

Do I need this?

Short answer: Fuck no.

What is it?

Several companies make mists for your face that you are supposed to spritz on after you apply your makeup. They have a couple of advertised benefits: they will make your makeup's finish look more natural and/or they well make your makeup last longer. I have seen them described as "hairspray for your face." Sort of like a primer that you apply last instead of first.

For each of these products, I have tested them several times, over a variety of different types of makeup: medium coverage liquid foundation, tinted moisturizer, powder foundation, and concealer. I don't get into a lot of detail about the distinctions below, because I did not notice that they performed better over one type of makeup or another. I also used a variety of techniques: more or less spray, holding the bottle closer or farther apart, etc. Again, I don't have much to report about better or worse techniques. The one thing I would recommend is that if you wear non-waterproof mascara, you should apply that after you use a spray, because the spray might cause it to dissolve a little and transfer. It's not a huge problem, though.